Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Tada!!!!!

I put the finishing touches on the walker last night. It was quite a lot harder to know when I should call this build "done". But I'm mostly happy with the outcome.

Here be pic's;

Proudly standing beside his captured walker.

I think I painted that sign about five different colours before I finally settled on black.

I did the rust & oil stains with pigments, oil paint & acrylics.

The dreaded headlights, I think they turned out ok.

Good old Mutie, plying his honest trade on the outskirts of Helsreach.

I made the gun detachable, as I knew it would be the first
thing to get broken off otherwise.

This was the first time I tried using oil paints, I'm now a convert, they were
relatively easy to use and I think the effect looks pretty convincing.

Must be quite terrifying for the slaves looking up at that from ground level.

The slave that tried to get away.

The ladder was originally going to be hydraulically operated, but I thought that
was a little too "high tech", so I made up a simple chain operated thingy instead.

It was a little difficult to know where the rust & oil stains should meet, but I
thought that there should be some rust running off of the platform
onto its legs.

The chipped paint ended up looking quite alright after some extensive
weathering was applied to it.

I made the ladder from bits of sprue, plastic spoons, necklace & a model kit.

Seats five to six scum bags (28mm minis) in relative comfort.

Rust prevention system (oil leaks), desert style.

Coolant leaks & a space marine head on a spike.

A few things worth mentioning about the build;

The headlights?

This was a pure fluke, the day before I finished it I was at the supermarket and came across these "feet stickers"....the kind you stick on the feet of chairs & speaker's to stop them scratching the floor. They were clear and the right size, but when I stuck them on they looked a little strange. I painted a couple of thin stripes on the front of them to replicate a headlight. I think they look ok.

The sign?

I wanted to write the same wording that was in the illustration, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't make out the middle word. I thought it must be "the", but it didn't look like it!

I decided I'd try the direct approach. I had a look on the net and found that Carl Critchlow (the illustrator of Helsreach in Rogue Trader) had his own website. I emailed him my strange question & he was kind enough to tell me what the word was..... thanks a bunch Carl :)

The chipped/flaking paint?

This was another first fit me. I'd never tried painting this much worn out paint before, but I did have a couple of saved images of other people's work that looked the goods. My first attempt turned out looking like fluffy green clouds. After getting some constructive criticism from my pal, I went back to the drawing board. After I had gone back over the entire howdah and sharpened up all the edges it looked a whole lot better.

So, all in all it's been quite a cool little project. It's the biggest & most complex build I've ever attempted so far. It required a lot more planning than painting a single mini that's for sure!

Wow, what an amazing walker. The best use of robotech legs ever. You've really captured the Rogue Trader feel PERFECTLY! I can't pick out my favorite parts, because it's all so great. The rust up top, the stains on legs, the headlights, and wiring up top all really catch the eye. I'm going to print this page and cut out all the pictures, like you did with your old White Dwarfs. I'm so jealous of your skill.

This is awesome, great work. One of those brilliant ideas to model that you wish you came up with yourself. In my mind's eye Logan's World is the setting of Rogue Trader, and this really brings those sketches in the rulebook to life.

That is the absolute freaking bomb. I believe I saw your walker in some art elsewhere and I liked it. The more I see it and the more I learn about both it and where you got it the more absolutely not worthy I become. You go!

As to your second piece of advice . . . it occurs to me that I've just gotten myself into a situation remarkably parallel to your own "Mutie the Pig" problem. In a fit of inspiration I decided to make a little reference to another somewhat obscured bit of text on the facing page. (The same spread. I swear to god.) But I was too stupid to look around and ask the author. Googled my heart out trying to figure it out, but didn't once look in the index to the book. I owe you one. I've written the illustrator in my own rambling way. With luck he'll dig to the bottom of it and answer my question as succinctly as he answered yours.

And again, your walker is absolutely divine. Stunning. I'm considering going back to oil paints. (I gave it up, since I lick my brushes. My wife is trying to tell me to quit licking, so maybe oils are the way to go.)

Sorry I didn't reply to your comment shortly after you wrote it. For some reason blogger decided not to inform me of it. I only stumbled on it while rereading some of my posts......seeing what I need to improve :)

Thank you for your kind words Composer, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. I only hope my siege dreadnought turns out half as good.

That slogan was a real pain to figure out. I stared at it for ages, trying to figure out what it could possibly be. I think, for us mere mortals, we perceive any sort of professional in the artistic/writing field as a bit like a rockstars..... people who cannot or should not be attempted to contacted. But after a few weeks of wracking my brains, I just thought "fuck it! What have I got to lose?" And it worked!

Anywho, I think I posted to you about this on the Oldhammer forum yeah?

WIP-REVIEW: More scenery for Robotech!
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First update of this year!
I've been building the scenery sets from 4Ground I have so far:
Primera actualización del año!
He estado armando los sets de escen...